Messaging services include: Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), instant message service, and convergent message service etc. The instant message service and the convergent message service are based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology and are a kind of presence-based individual-to-individual, individual-to-application, or individual-to-group mobile data service of a message type.
In the existing synchronization technology, data/information is synchronized in a Server/Client mode, so that schedules, address books, short messages, emails, and files may be synchronized.
In the Server/Client mode, a terminal is a device that includes a synchronization client agent, which sends modification to a server and receives a reply from the server. The server can also send a synchronization task request to the terminal. Generally, the terminal is a mobile station, a personal computer (PC), or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).
The server is a device that includes a synchronization service agent and a synchronization engine. The terminal sends a synchronization command and modification to the server. After receiving the modification from the terminal, the server replies with the processed synchronization analysis results. Moreover, if no synchronization request command is received and the command can be supported by the transport protocol layer, a synchronization may be initiated from the server to the terminal.
Besides, an email synchronization technology also exists in the prior art. When the email state of a terminal changes, the terminal notifies a server of the change after establishing a connection. The server updates the email state of the mailbox. When the email state of the mailbox of the server changes, the server notifies the terminal of the change (if no connection exists, the server adopts the out-band notification mode through other engines; if a connection exists, the server adopts the in-band notification mode through an IMAP response). After receiving the notification, the terminal updates the local email state accordingly.
However, in the research process, the inventor has discovered that a transmitter or a receiver may have multiple message terminals such as mobile station, PDA, and PC during communication between the transmitter and the receiver. Therefore, when multiple terminals of the transmitter or receiver are powered on, the message sent by the transmitter should be transmitted to the multiple terminals of the receiver simultaneously. Meanwhile, if the transmitter stores a message as a draft in a terminal rather than sending the message out, the transmitter needs to synchronize the unfinished message to other terminals of the transmitter, so that the transmitter may continue editing and sending the message on other terminals. However, the existing synchronization technologies are based on synchronization from a server and a terminal or from a terminal and a server, and the synchronization of messages and message states between multiple terminals of the same user cannot be implemented directly. Therefore, in the conventional technology, the synchronization of messages and message states in the case that the server saves no history messages is unable to be implemented.